“The OSS in Korea: Operation Eagle” –A Recap of a Failed Mission

By Bill Streifer

at the end of WWII. During the war, the entire Korean peninsula was occupied by Imperial Japan.

Operation Eagle was conducted in accordance with an agreement reached in October 1944 between the OSS and Korean General Lee Bum-suk of the Korean Restoration Army. On April 1, 1945, a meeting was held between Captain Clyde B. Sargent (later the OSS Eagle field commander) and General Lee at a small Tientsin (also known as Tianjin) restaurant in Chungking, China.

During that meeting, the bulk of their conversation centered around the “reciprocal advantages” of Korean-American occupation in the war against Imperial Japan. Sargent, who had expressed his hope that such cooperation would have the support of all Korean leaders and groups, was invited to visit a Korean colony 12 kilometers north of Chungking along with a delegation from the Korean Provisional Government in exile.

his control to locate and evacuate POWs.

Upon receipt of news that President Truman had accepted the unconditional surrender of Japan, Operation Eagle departed Hsian on August 16, 1945 at 04:30 for Keijo aboard a C-47 cargo plane. Lieutenant Colonel Willis Bird of Lansdowne, Pennsylvania, Deputy Chief of the OSS in China, was in command. In addition to nineteen Americans and three Koreans, Bird also invited Harry R. Lieberman, chief news editor of the Office of War Information (OWI) – China Branch, and a photographer.

According to Professor Maochun Yu, the author of OSS in China: Prelude to Cold War, “Bird, ever publicly conscious and eager to gain fame by ‘liberating’ Korea single-handedly, added a Mr. Lieberman—an OWI writer—to the Eagle mission in violation of Heppner’s specific orders.” Although several of the Japanese officers spoke English, the proceedings were carried out in Japanese, with Captain Hahm interpreting. Bird immediately explained the purpose of the mission and requested assistance from the Japanese in accomplishing it:

Bird: I am here at the direction of Lieutenant General Albert C. Wedemeyer, Commander-in-Chief of U.S. Forces in the China Theater, as an initial pre-Allied occupation representative to bring whatever help is needed to Allied prisoners of war to make preliminary arrangements for their future evacuation in accordance with the terms of the peace negotiations.

Ihara: Then you are not here to negotiate a surrender?

Bird: No. Our mission is purely humanitarian, to see that the prisoners are safe and to bring them what immediate help they need.

“The OSS in Korea: Operation Eagle” begins with a discussion of Blacklist, General Douglas MacArthur’s basic outline plan for the occupation of Japan once hostilities during WWII had ended. It called for the disarmament and demobilization of enemy forces, the establishment of a military government, the preservation of law and order, and the apprehension of Japanese war criminals. It also called for the recovery, relief, and repatriation of Allied prisoners of war and civilian internees “without delay.”

By war’s end, 32,400 men remained interned in POW camps in Japan and Korea, which had been under Japanese control since 1910. The American public, however, was unaware of the neglect, maltreatment, and abuse the prisoners had suffered at the hands of the Japanese. Nor were they aware that 30 percent of American POWs had already died in captivity. And yet, according to a February 1945 article in The New York Times, the “Japanese are not invariably cruel to their prisoners.”

The article “The OSS in Korea: Operation Eagle” by Bill Streifer is available in full in the American Intelligence Journal and on JSTOR.

In2012, I wrote about an American prisoner-of-war (POW) rescue mission during World War II, conducted by the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner of the CIA. Originally intended for publication as a book, an abbreviated version of “The OSS in Korea: Operation Eagle” was instead published as a 6-page article for the American Intelligence Journal, the flagship publication of the National Military Intelligence Agency.

The quote below by Dr. John W. Brunner, a former member of the OSS, introduces the article. In it, Brunner discusses the failure of the Eagle OSS mission and who he blames for the mission’s failure:

“At the time I was in charge of the cryptography section in Kunming HQ and I got to see all high level radio traffic for all of China… I was very well informed about what was going on everywhere in China. When Eagle got chased out of Korea we all laughed and said that Col. Bird had fouled up again.” – John Brunner.

“The OSS in Korea: Operation Eagle” in a Nutshell

The area of operations for the Eagle rescue mission — named for the bird that symbolizes America — was Keijo/ Seoul, the future capital of South Korea. Eagle was to be carried out by the OSS just prior to cessation of hostilities

The article, “The OSS in Korea,” explains the purpose and timing of the Eagle mission; the difficulties encountered; and an explanation for the crew’s inability to carry out the mission as planned. The article also explains that although POW rescue work was the purview of the War Department, the OSS— ”America’s first intelligence agency”—was invited to join the effort, providing cover for intelligence operations.

In January 1945, U.S. Secretary of State Edward Stettinius informed the Director of the OSS, Major General William J. Donovan, of the State Department’s effort to learn what was happening to American prisoners inside Japanese POW and internment camps. In March, Colonel Richard Heppner, the Chief of the OSS in China under Lieutenant General Albert Wedemeyer, ordered the establishment of a new OSS field unit to be based in Hsian, northern China, 1000 miles west of Keijo (now Seoul), Korea.

The abrupt end of WWII on August 15, 1945 caught the OSS by surprise. Heppner wrote in a message to Donovan, “Although we have been caught with our pants down, we will do our best to pull them up in time.” Consequently, Wedemeyer immediately issued a “comprehensive directive” to various special agencies under